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They were in the car. It was time. Will was driving, gripping the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white. Percy was fidgeting with his fingers the entire time, trying not to focus on where they were headed. Ana, Nia, Arlo, and Tom were connected to them through an earpiece.
A few hours earlier, Ana finally understood who the main leader of Wayne Corp was. The corporation that they were fighting. The corporation that tortured millions of kids to make them into science experiments, one of which was one of their own, Nia.
It was Percy’s mother. Rosemary Mclain.
Percy when he heard it at first from Ana thought that she was joking. That it was a sick prank that was being pulled on him. There was no way that Percy’s mom, who abused him as a kid, and who was proclaimed dead a few years back, was doing this. He had to have been standing there looking at Ana for what seemed a long time. Until he finally resigned.
“No…No way.” Percy said softly, falling to his knees. The world seemed to crumble underneath his weight. He felt tears welling up in his eyes as the realization hit him hard like a truck.
“The information seemed to line up. If what Persephone told me was right, it can only be her.” Ana said, “I thought it couldn’t be true either, due to the fact that she was proclaimed dead in that fire a few years back, but, god, Percy there is so much proof.”
Now, Will is emotional, for sure, he gets angry at minor things, like what song is playing in the car on the way to work, or like how he got angry when the coffee HE made turned out bad, but Percy doesn’t seem to think of a single day that Will was this angry. He was so angry that he looked neutral. He looked like he was just staring at the wall, the only indication that he was angry was his leg bouncing frantically up and down.
“Where is she?” Will grumbled.
“Her last known location was this warehouse on Main street.” Ana explains, knowing full-well what Will was planning on doing.
“Will don’t do what you are thinking on doing.” Tom spoke this time, “I am as angry as anyone else but Rosemary is the most powerful person alive currently, if it is truly her; we need to plan this out.”
Will sighed, “But—“
“No—“ Tom turned as if to speak to everyone that was in that living room, “No one is going after her tonight, understand?”
There was a silent agreement not to go guns-a-blazing into this warehouse. Percy was helped by Nia into his room, with how he could barely seemed to remember how to stand anymore, and was told to try and sleep.
God knows Percy didn’t sleep at all that night.
The next morning it seemed that no one else slept either, Tom was pouring coffee into his mug with shaky hands, Will seemed to not have changed from last night, with piles of paper in his hands, and Ana had even more paper in her hands, with a bunch of maps and notes on them. Nia was the only one that seemed somewhat normal, though it may be the fact that she didn’t have a normal sleep schedule like everyone else did.
Will slammed a stack a paper on the breakfast table, “Ana and I made a plan.”
“We have to go tonight. If we wait any longer Rosemary will be notified that we know that she is the main leader and may prepare ahead of time.” Ana pulled out a map of what seemed to be the warehouse, “And I feel like Percy has to be the one to go in primarily.”
Percy was suddenly listening, “I’m sorry?”
“She wants you. You’re her son. If she wants to turn anyone into a mutant—“
“It would be me.” Percy interrupted, “But if she did why didn’t she just grab me off the street?”
“I mean you are pretty good at covering your trace.” Will provides, “You hid Nia, Arlo and yourself for years until we recruited Nia into our team.”
“And?” Percy was trying to come up with an excuse to not go, mostly for himself.
“If you came in willingly, they would take us up straight to Rosemary.” Ana explains, “Giving us a chance to get up and personal to her.”
Will quickly turned to Percy, “Of course—We will only do this plan if you want to Percy. We don’t want to do this if you can’t. We have a plan b if need—“
“I’ll do it.” Percy said immediately, standing and pushing his seat back, “I think I should be the one to end it right? To make it go full circle. I have some things to ask her about.”
“Alright let’s do this then.” Tom said, placing his coffee down, to everyone’s shock, “What? we have a plan right? We might as well!”
Nia smiled and looked at Ana, “Where do we start?”
Will’s terrible braking job brings Percy to the present. They finally drove to the warehouse, which didn’t really look like a warehouse, it looked more like a sterilized lab, with white walls and tile floors.
Ana insisted, much to everyone dismay, that Percy should be without his suit. That if he went with his suit not only would Rosemary find out that Percy was Arson, Rosemary would probably deny entry immediately.
“Okay are you ready?” Will looked over at Percy.
“Ready as I’ll ever be.” Percy says with a sigh, prepping for what was going to come.
“Here we go then.” Will slips on his mask, becoming Puppeteer, “Time to turn into the bad guy.”
The plan was to make it seem like the hero agency was giving Percy away due to his incompetence, mostly to give an excuse to Will to pull out his theatre degree. That way Percy would have protection if anything were to go wrong, including the fact that some other heroes were on standby if it gets even more bad. You never know.
Percy put a hand to his ear, “Are we good to go?”
Ana’s voice came through the receiver, “Yes. You are good to go.”
Nia came in next, “Remember, Puppeteer doesn’t hate you, he just has to play a part.”
Percy breathed in, “Yes, I know. He is just acting.”
Slowly they both got out of the car and went towards the sliding doors, with Puppeteer grabbing his arm with some force, pulling him into the main lobby area.
He’s acting, this is a performance that he’s doing. remember that. That was the mantra that was playing over and over in Percy’s head.
They walk up the receptionist.
“Puppeteer, I told them ahead of time about how you were bringing Percy with you, so just tell them your name and you should be set.” Arlo came through, typing away at his computer.
“Hey.” Puppeteer said to the receptionist lady who was typing away at her desk, “I have an appointment with Rosemary, names Puppeteer.”
“Why do you need to see her?” The lady’s high gravely voice seemed to shock the both of them.
“Need to give this brat to her.” Puppeteer said, raising Percy’s arm up to show who he was talking about.
The lady raised her hand to her ear and spoke quietly into it, as if talking into an earpiece before continuing, “Okay, you are good to head up. Guards will be joining you due to the circumstances of the visit.” The lady then pressed a button on her desk, which opened a small gate that lead to the main area, “The elevators are to the right.”
Puppeteer nodded before dragging Percy to the elevators, where they were met with five guards that were going to join them in the elevator.
The elevator was a tight fit, leaving Percy and Puppeteer in the middle. One of guards pressed a button and the elevator started to rise.
“Puppeteer, don’t engage immediately. Let Percy do most of the talking.” Ana spoke, “Rosemary doesn’t care for you anyways and will probably send you down in a heartbeat after getting Percy.”
Percy would probably on his own.
With his abusive mother.
That sounded fun.
Percy looked over and under Puppeteer’s mask Percy could sense the eye-roll.
“Percy be careful. Don’t hurt her until necessary. We want to imprison her, not kill her.” Ana spoke to him next, “Try to keep conversation until we can infiltrate.”
Percy nods to himself, before the elevator doors opened, revealing the huge office that his mother apparently had. It had hundreds of large test tubes, empty luckily. The room was also full of guards, more than a normal guarded room should have. A large desk sat in the middle of the room, with a leather chair behind it and two smaller ones in front of it.
And sitting on that chair was the one and only Rosemary Mclain.
“Hello, Hello!” Rosemary spoke, “I see you have my son.”
“Yeah. The brat was a nuisance and I heard that you wanted him.” Puppeteer shoves Percy to the desk, “You may have better use for him than we did.”
Rosemary hums, “Well, you seemed to keep up with your end of the deal.”
Suddenly, Rosemary snapped her fingers, sending guards to Puppeteer. Two guards grabbed at his arms and pushed them towards his back.
“I won’t be needing you anymore.” Rosemary smiled, with the grin that Percy recognized immediately.
One pure of evil intent.
“Take him down and kick him out,” Rosemary waved her hand, “make sure he doesn’t come back in.”
It happened exactly like Ana predicted. Percy looked at Puppeteer with worry, and Puppeteer gave a small wink towards Percy before being dragged out.
“It’s up to you now, songbird.” Puppeteer said softly into his earpiece.
Percy took a deep breath. Now it’s his turn.
“Percy, Percy.” Rosemary started walking towards him, “You thought you could run from Mommy?”
“I did. For five years in fact.” Percy said, sudden confidence flowing through him, it could have also been adrenaline, but he couldn’t be so sure.
“Yeah, then you broke our first rule. The first thing I ever taught you. Do you remember?” Rosemary grinned.
Oh does Percy remember. The only thing that he couldn’t scrub away for years.
“Don’t trust people.” Percy said softly. Rosemary then placed her hand on Percy’s shoulder.
“Good. This is how you learn your lesson! See those hero shumucks make you think that they love you, then look how it turns out. Hated by the people you thought loved you.” Rosemary then started walking towards her desk, and pulls out a long cigarette, like those Cruella de Vil smoked in the movies Percy watched, and sat down in her chair, “You probably didn’t tell them everything either, did you?”
Percy tensed.
“You didn’t?! I thought for sure you did!” Rosemary cackles.
“I didn’t need to.” Percy responded, “They didn’t need to know.”
“Oh?” Rosemary turns in her chair, and placed her feet on her desk, “They didn’t need to know that you were Mother’s assassin before you ran off? And that you were the best at the job too?”
Percy was speechless, not in the way of being surprised like in most cases, but in the way of if you had a bad stomachache and you felt the taste of vomit in your mouth after a few seconds.
“Percy you were what?!” Nia began.
“It wasn’t important.” Percy replies, ignoring the clamoring in his ear.
“Hm. I see, I see. So, now you are here. Turned in. Ready to do that all over again?” Rosemary smiled, lowering her feet slowly, “Because I feel like you still haven’t forgotten how to do the job.”
Percy’s eyes widened. He felt like the world was falling apart again, but he kept standing, he wasn’t going to let her get into her head like that. Not that easily.
“Well, they turned me in, that doesn’t mean I’m doing shit. I didn’t come of my own volition.” Percy’s adrenaline kicked up again, “Besides, I feel like I should ask some things first.”
“Hm.” Rosemary seemed to think about it, “Fine. Ask me some questions, we need to play catch-up anyways.”
“What happened after I ran off?” Percy began, “Did you just replace me with Icestorm?”
“Yeah, I thought Icestorm would be a good replacement, but it isn’t the same as my baby. He has been training, but not enough. As to what happened after you left? I built this empire, killed the previous leader and took over.” Rosemary giggles, “It was a fun experience.”
“What about Mary? Did you do something to her?” Percy asked next, the question that had been burning his mind since the beginning of it all. Before even escaping in the first place. What happened to his sister? Who killed her?
“Oh her? I might as well tell you. We are here now aren’t we?” Rosemary leaned over the desk, placed the cigarette in her mouth, sucking some smoke in before she said, “She was number 0001”
If Percy’s world didn’t snap before, it sure did now, “What?”
“Oh you know, the numeration on my test subjects. She was the first. Mary was perfect. Her power could easily meld with others and in theory she could have been the most powerful person alive! More powerful than me!” Rosemary laughed, opening a drawer next to her, “But your sister, oh your sister, she was stubborn. She didn’t want to do it, which led to her dying during one of the procedures.”
Rosemary then pulls out a locket, the same one that Mary had that matched Percy’s one under his shirt. It was gold, with an engraving of a “P” on the front. Percy’s was the same except with an “M” on the front. It was rusting, but there was no doubt that it was Mary’s.
Percy snatched the locket out of Rosemary’s hand, “You killed her for your own experiments!?”
“She was a worthy cause Percy. She had to die to make way for the science we now have! Imagine a world without the research and data we have gained just from her!” Rosemary explained gleefully, “God, I would be a nobody. WE wouldn’t be somebody!”
“YOU ARE A FREAK!” Percy stood, leaned to her and grabbed her collar, “YOU KILLED HER FOR YOUR STUPID SCIENCE EXPERIMENTS! SHE WAS THE ONLY ONE WHO CARED FOR ME IN THAT GOD-FORSAKEN HOUSE AND SHE WAS WHY I STAYED IN THE FIRST PLACE!”
Tears started streaming down Percy’s face, the intercom in his ear went silent, the quiet typing and mumbling in the background went to a halt. The guards tried to get Percy off of Rosemary, only for her to raise her hand and tell them to walk away.
“Don’t worry. Percy is too much of a coward to hurt me anyways.”
Percy’s anger was now in full force, he whispered quietly, “I’m sorry Ana.”
Percy then grabbed a pen that was on Rosemary’s desk and stabbed in her in the throat, multiple times.
Blood stained everything from Percy’s clothes to the entirety of her desk. Percy didn’t care anymore, he was screaming and stabbing her.
Over.
and Over.
and Over.
and Over.
Until someone had to pull him off. One of the guards, who immediately threw him out of the room into the elevator.
Percy closed his eyes and slowly dragged his body to the floor of the elevator. He did it. He killed her. The one thing that he wanted to do for years.
The next time he opened his eyes he was outside of the car, with a worried Will running towards him.
He then collapsed into Will’s arms and sobbed.
“I-I did what I had to do.”